Mobile phone use has become increasingly popular and ubiquitous. Rather than simple communications devices (often referred to as user equipment in the cellular industry), mobile phones: have become portable computers that integrate calendar, email, contact, and other applications. Consequently, the use of other communication devices that don't have these integrated and personalized features has become undesirable. Unfortunately, certain situations force the use of other communications devices. One example of such a situation is air travel. Conventional mobile phones are very undependable during flight as they do not transmit at a high enough power to maintain communication with the ground networks. Current aircraft communication systems are undesirable because they are both expensive and duplicate the mobile phone equipment people already have and would prefer to use.
Current aircraft communication systems utilize satellite communication systems or other alternatives to traditional ground-based mobile phone networks. Aircraft communications concepts pose issues with ground networks because of the possibility of illuminating many base station towers in the same band. This issue resolves itself within the network by only using one coded signal, however, illumination of multiple base stations may use bandwidth resources preventing others from locking on to the base station. In addition, illuminating multiple base stations may raise the noise floor to the point that another mobile phone user on the ground loses link because of the added marginal noise. Furthermore, other issues include the extreme variability of ground network RF propagation and radiation directed skyward. While main beams are engineered for maximum coverage and minimal interference for terrestrial users, airborne application of this network presents extraordinary challenges for attaining reasonable link quality and user experience. Current terrestrial based network solutions also rely upon network infrastructure investment. Therein lies the need for a low-cost terrestrial based air-to-ground system that does not require investment in new infrastructure while scaling with commercial network technology advancements.